


And An Even Worse Second Impression

by ScreechTheMighty



Series: A lawyer and a PI walk into Josie's... [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Jessica suffers, Malcolm suffers even more, Matt is beat up again, No idea where this fits in relation to the showcanons, inspired by a comment, rating for profanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 10:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6370705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScreechTheMighty/pseuds/ScreechTheMighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just when Malcolm though this Matt Murdock guy couldn't get any weirder.</p><p>A follow-up to "<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6255967/chapters/14334415">Some Nights</a>", specifically the second chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And An Even Worse Second Impression

**Author's Note:**

> So patster223 left this comment on my fic "Some Nights": "I would love to see Matt try to repair that [bad first] impression later on (and see Malcolm's reaction when he realizes that that weird hungover dude in Jessica's apartment is Daredevil)". My brain combined those two scenarios into one, resulting in this piece of hilarity. Thanks for the inspo, patster!

Malcolm wasn’t usually up this late. It wasn’t related to a case with Jessica; he’d been spending time with other people for a change. On the way home, he stopped for peanut butter, and grabbed her some coffee while he was at it. It really was their coffee at this point, from the amount of time he spent there working. He figured he’d drop it off, make sure that she was actually going to sleep tonight, and go home.

He didn’t count on opening the door to see a guy in his boxers bleeding all over the place while Jessica saran wrapped an ice pack to his knee. This sight wasn’t _entirely_ out of line with Jessica’s lifestyle choices, but it still caught Malcolm off-guard.

“Jesus Christ, Matt, what did you do?” Jessica demanded. “Fight every gang in the city all at once?”

“I have a good explanation,” replied the bleeding guy.

“Yeah, you’d better.”

Malcolm cleared his throat. “Uh…hey?”

Jessica’s head shot up; the bleeding stranger’s head tilted, almost like an owl. “…shit,” Jessica sighed. “Malcolm, what are you doing here? It’s like, eleven o’clock.”

“It’s, uh, quarter ‘til midnight, actually. And the door was unlocked.”

The bleeding stranger groaned. “ _Jessica._ ”

“Murdock, I swear to God, if you start on me…”

“Hey, _hey_ …”

“…I will throw you off the goddamn fire escape, and that _will_ break your intact ribs…”

“Matt Murdock?” Malcolm knew that name. And now that his eyes had adjusted to the low lighting in Jessica’s apartment, he knew that face, too. “Jessica’s lawyer friend, right? You were here a few weeks ago. You were hungover.”

The stranger—Matt—made a face that was somewhere between a sheepish smile and an embarrassed grimace. “That’s, uh…that’s me.” Most of the blood seemed to be coming from a cut on his cheek; his torso was a mess of bruises. “I was kind of hoping to make a better second impression.”

“Yeah, well, you fucked that,” Jessica huffed in frustration. “You want to stare all night, Malcolm, or you want to give me a hand with this?”

This was _so_ not in Malcolm’s job description...but then again, maybe it was. Jessica got into a lot of risky shit—less risky in comparison to Kilgrave, but still risky. First aid was a given with a life like that. He just thought he’d be patching _her_ up, not someone else. Matt didn’t seem too happy about it, either. His eye darted back and forth, but never looked in Malcolm’s direction. Right, he was blind. Malcolm remembered that. “How does a blind guy get beat up like this?” he asked.

“I pissed someone off. I’m good at that.” Matt swallowed nervously. “Jessica…”

Jessica glared at Matt. “Shut up. Let us get this ice pack on. You’re sleeping here tonight. And don’t get any ideas from that, Malcolm.”

The thought had crossed his mind after last time. Apparently, it hadn’t been an accurate one. Matt looked too beat up for anything more strenuous than mild stretching, anyway. “You, uh, you do realize you could break me in half, right?” Matt said. He sounded like he was trying to make a joke, but was too nervous to pull it off. Malcolm couldn’t figure out why. It was a little weird that he was just there and bleeding and basically naked, but Jessica wandered around in her apartment in her underwear. It wasn’t that weird in comparison. “Even if I wasn’t beat to hell?”

Malcolm bit back a laugh. “Yeah, probably.” As he moved around to help Jessica hold the ice pack against Matt’s knee, he caught sight of something sitting in Jessica’s office chair. At first he thought it was just some clothes, whatever it was, it was red. Jessica didn’t usually wear red. When he took a second look…

Malcolm jumped back, eyes wide. “Holy _shit!_ ”

That was a devil mask. A devil mask he’d seen in the newspapers before. The devil mask that belonged to _Daredevil._

“Are you _kidding me?!_ ”

Matt buried his face in his hands; Jessica looked completely unimpressed. “Oh, God,” Matt groaned.

“Don’t worry about him,” Jessica said, sounding even less impressed than she looked. “He can keep a secret. Malcolm, hold the damn ice pack.”

He held the damn ice pack, but couldn’t stop staring at the mask. “…you’re blind,” he said finally, over the sound of saran wrap being stretched across Matt’s— _Daredevil’s_ —knee.

“ _Yes_.” Matt’s voice was muffled by his hands. “Yes, I am blind. I have this thing. It’s complicated. Jessica, are you sure…”

“Malcolm’s not going to tell anyone.” Jessica pressed the wrap into place—none to gently, either, if Matt’s wince was anything to go by. “He’s a good person and shit. Right, Malcolm?”

Well, at this point, he didn’t have any choice. “I won’t tell,” he said, “but I have questions. So are you like, _partially_ blind, or…”

“ _No_. I am not _partially_ blind.” Matt’s hands fell away from his face as Jessica backed away from him. “I’m fully blind. I’ve been blind since I was nine. Like I said, I have a thing. I should go.”

“Not with your knee banged up like that,” Jessica said briskly. “Sit down.”

“But…”

“I said, sit the fuck down, Murdock.”

He sat down on the couch. Malcolm stayed hovering by the desk, still glancing at the mask. “Do you echolocate?” he guessed. Some blind people did that, right?

“Among other things.”

“What other things?”

“He can smell cologne three floors down and hear people screwing from four blocks away,” Jessica supplied as she dragged the first aid kit out from under her desk. “I keep trying to get him to help me with cases, but he has other shit to do. Like get his ass kicked.”

Huh. Okay, so super-senses. Malcolm could kind of see how that would work. Not that it made things any less weird. Jessica Jones knew Daredevil. Because Daredevil was also her blind lawyer friend. This was now officially beyond the usual Jessica Jones level of weird. Malcolm’s life had been normal once. He missed that. “Are you going to be okay?” Malcolm asked.

“I’ve had worse.” Matt’s head kept tilting towards Malcolm. It was like he was trying to look towards Malcolm, but wasn’t sure if he should. “Ice and some butterfly bandages and I’ll be okay.”

“And sleep,” Jessica interjected as she started dabbing at the wound with an alcohol swab.

“Objection. How much sleep did _you_ get last night?”

The irony of a guy who ran around in a demon mask beating people up scolding Jessica about how much sleep she got was _not_ lost on Malcolm. “Not a lot,” he said before Jessica could doge the question. “We had a case. Hell, _I_ barely slept.”

“You should both sleep, then.” Jessica groaned noisily in response. Matt smiled for the first time since Malcolm had walked in the room. “I won’t sleep until you do.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Jessica grumbled. When she pulled away, there was less blood on Matt’s face, and the cut on his cheek was bandaged, albeit a bit clumsily. “Gimme a second. I have to switch out the pillowcase.”

She disappeared into her bedroom. Malcolm, after some hesitation, moved away from the desk and sat down next to Matt on the couch. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, leaning over to check the injury.

“I’m fine.” Matt’s head tilted again. “She…got red pillowcases. Or so I’m told. So I don’t stain anything too badly.”

That made sense. That also meant… “She’s known for a while.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve slept over here more than once.”

Matt nodded. “Not a lot of people know, and of the ones that do…one doesn’t really know first aid, and I got the other one kicked out of her apartment for bleeding all over it, so I can’t come over anymore. Usually she comes to me if it’s really bad. It hasn’t been really bad in a while. Not since I got…” He gestured roughly towards Jessica’s desk. Malcolm assumed he was gesturing towards his costume. “So, uh, you’re really okay with this?”

Was he? Malcolm didn’t know. He’d been so wrapped up in getting his life back together and doing things with Alias Investigations that he hadn’t really formed an opinion on the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. He’d always figured that Daredevil did the same sort of thing they did, just flashier and on a slightly bigger scale. Which technically put them on the same team. And if Jessica trusted him… “I’ll get used to it. I guess I just don’t understand how a blind lawyer starts fighting crime in a devil mask.”

“Short version? I got tired of people getting hurt and decided to do something about it.” Matt shrugged. “Look, I really am sorry about…all of this. I was going to stop by sometime and introduce myself, y’know, Jessica’s said nice things about you…”

“She has?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Jessica was back. She nudged Matt as she walked by the couch. “You. Go to sleep.”

“Ugh, _fine._ ” Matt stood carefully. Malcolm caught sight of a few more scars as he did. Christ, what kind of bad guys was Matt fighting? Jessica was nowhere _near_ that badly beaten up, not as far as Malcolm knew. “Sorry about this again, Malcolm. I promise I’m not always…bleeding or hung over.”

Malcolm shrugged. “Honestly, I’m used to it by now.” He wasn’t kidding, either. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Malcolm watched Matt limp into Jessica’s room, shutting the door behind him. “So,” he whispered. Matt could probably still hear him, if what Jessica had said about him earlier was true, but he was going to at least _try_ to keep his voice down. “This has been happening for a few months?”

“God, Malcolm, you make it sound like we’re fucking or something.” Jessica didn’t bother keeping her voice down as she started picking up the plastic wrap and first aid supplies. “Yeah, I’ve known for a few months. I wasn’t going to blab about it for obvious reasons.”

“Fair enough, but aren’t you…”

“Worried? No. Matt’s…” She stopped just at the kitchen door. “Matt’s an idiot, but he’s a good guy. The worst thing he does is bleed on the carpet sometimes. It’s under control.”

“If you say so.” Malcolm glanced towards Jessica’s room. He knew that, based on the cases she took, Jessica _technically_ counted as a vigilante. But Matt felt more like an _actual_ vigilante, with a costume and a nickname and everything. That made things different, somehow. “Has he told you why _Daredevil?_ ”

Jessica snorted. “The press gave him that one. That’s why I never bothered with the whole…” Malcolm heard a clatter as Jessica dumped everything onto the kitchen counter. “…mask and secrecy thing. I don’t want a dumb nickname. Seriously, you should go home. Get some sleep. You need it.”

“So do you.”

“I’ll be going to bed in five minutes. He’ll come back out here and start whining at me if I don’t.” _There_ was an interesting mental picture. “Thanks for the help. And for not freaking out.”

“No problem.”

The whole thing felt like trouble. But, on the other hand, there wasn’t any mind control involved, and Malcolm didn’t have to get rid of a dead body, so _objectively_ , this was one of the _less_ weird things he had to deal with in the name of their friendship. That didn’t stop it from feeling like trouble, but at least he could tell himself it was trouble Jessica could handle.

 _Still,_ Malcolm thought as he unlocked his apartment door and stepped inside, _guys who can control minds and masked vigilantes? They’ll be asking her to join the Avengers next._

Yeah, right. Jessica wasn’t one for team-ups. That wouldn’t happen in a million years.


End file.
